Drill music originated in Chicago but has recently been embraced in the UK

Earlier this month, Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick singled out a genre of music known as "drill" for contributing to the capital's spike in violent crime.

“Drill music is associated with lyrics which are about glamourising serious violence: murder, stabbings,” Dick told LBC radio.

She added: “Most particularly, in London we have gangs who make drill videos and in those videos, they taunt each other. They say what they’re going to do to each other and specifically what they are going to do to who.”

Scotland Yard said it had asked YouTube to take down between 50 and 60 music videos over the past two years, of which around 30 have now been deleted.

Rhyhiem Barton, right, was killed on Saturday night during a drive-by shooting. He appeared with former BBC DJ Tim Westwood, left, in a YouTube video

It is unclear if all the videos belonged to the same genre.

Drill music has its roots in Chicago and is known for its gritty lyrical content and stark, hip-hop-influenced beats.

More recently it has been adopted in the UK to highlight the violence and hopelessness of life as a poor, young gang member in London.

Many of the lyrics are just the rappers' glorified violent fantasies, but the surge in the genre's popularity has coincided with the deadly crime wave which has left 62 dead in London already this year.

YouTube has taken down 30 of the 60 "violent" music videos targeted by the Met

And one of the most recent victims of this crime epidemic, 17-year-old Rhyhiem Barton is among those linked to the violent genre of music.

Barton, who was reported to be a member of a drill squad called "Moscow 17, was shot in a drive-by shooting this month.

Two years after the Met's initial warnings, it seems YouTube is finally waking up to the real-life implications of the drill genre.

Pressplay – a music company that shares drill videos on its YouTube channel – spoke of the flurry of takedowns in an Instagram post, claiming the videos would be re-instated in the "next few weeks".

"The police and the main police commissioner has forced YouTube to take down some videos," Pressplay said.

"It will probably be back up in the next few weeks just atm with whats going it has caused this."

A YouTube spokesman said: “We have developed policies specifically to help tackle videos related to knife crime in the UK and are continuing to work constructively with experts on this issue.

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“We work with the Metropolitan police, the mayor’s office for policing and crime, the Home Office and community groups to understand this issue and ensure we are able to take action on gang-related content that infringe our community guidelines or break the law.

“We have a dedicated process for the police to flag videos directly to our teams because we often need specialist context from law enforcement to identify real-life threats. Along with others in the UK, we share the deep concern about this issue and do not want our platform used to incite violence.”

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